Lightly rusty rabbet block plane

I know what some (or all!) of you must be thinking. Only 4 stars!Well, I got this plane as a Christmas gift from my aunt and I was really excited because I couldn’t believe she gave me such a nice and expensive gift.I opened it and saw right away that there seemed to be a light coat of rust on the plane. It was especially noticeable on the sole. (See picture) I realized that whoever packaged the plane must have forgot to coat the plane with oil. The frog was oiled but not the rest of the plane. Its’ too bad because this is a very nice plane. I removed the rust with a scotch brite pad… it took about 15 or 20 minutes. I honed the blade but as I was adding the back bevel, I discovered that the back of the blade had a very slight hollow at the cutting edge so I had to lap the back of the blade straight. I have 3 other Lie Nielsen planes and all came to me almost ready to go… no rust and the back was lapped flat. All I had to be was add the back bevel and the secondary bevel on the blade.Anyway, I have been putting the plane through its’ paces and it is really nice. It works perfectly now. I’m finding that I reach for it quite often. I really like the weight and balance.The problems I had were relatively minor but it is because of those problems that I had to take away a star.

2 comments so far

For the price we pay LN for their tools, I would have called them and either asked for a full replacement OR a partial refund. Needless to say, I would also provide photos of their product to substantiate the claim.

I did contact them and they told me a scotch brite pad should remove the rust. I didn’t complain about the blade since I didn’t realize it had a hollow until I was sharpening it. Both issues probably added 30 or 40 minutes to the setup time.I forgot to add that they did offer to pay for shipping both ways to remove the rust but since the solution was easy, I opted to do it myself.My other LN planes just needed maybe 15 minutes to hone the blade plus setup the plane.